Daniel signed copies of IS YOUR BUFFALO READY FOR KINDERGARTEN? at BookPeople in Austin, TX and I got to hang out with Jenny and Posh of Forever Young Adult and Amanda G. We might have also sang karaoke ...

I rewrote the first chapter of LEVEL 2 and wrote four more chapters in preparation for the SCBWI winter conference in NYC. Then I read the fine print of the writer's intensive that said I should only present material that was ready to submit. Ended up presenting a picture book text to an agent and (in a weird twist of fate) my future editor instead.

Daniel and I met up with Steph Su in Philly and then got stuck in Snowmageddon.

Dystopian February was reduced due to my needing to write four additional chapters of LEVEL 2 by the end of the month.

March

I announced the sale of my first novel LEVEL 2 to Simon & Schuster BFYR. Film rights optioned by CBS Films, Audio rights acquired by Listening Library, and Brazilian rights sold as well. Also, 246 comments on my announcement post is pretty WOW. Thanks for your support, guys!

April

Since LEVEL 2 sold on a 9 chapter partial manuscript, I spent all of April writing. The blog kinda suffered.

We attended the wedding of good friends Chris and Vicky in Cordoba, Spain. I've never seen so much meat in my life.

May

On Friday, May 20th, I typed "The End" on my first draft of LEVEL 2.

I attended BEA in NYC. It was a whirlwind of bookish activities: publisher previews and parties, lunch with my editor and agent, lunch with my audio book editor, musical hotel rooms (I stayed nights with my critique partner Ann, Michelle of Galleysmith, the Forever Young Adult girls and an epic author/blogger slumber party at the home of Leila Sales), dinner with the Agave gang, fried chicken with Chelsy & The Book Smugglers, lunch with Adriana Trigiani and book bloggers, drinks with AS King and Natalie Standiford, the Book Blogger Convention (where I was on a panel), The Teen Author Carnival (where I moderated the debut author panel), meeting and hanging out with new and old friends, and much more. There was so much going on, I was barely on the BEA show floor. But I did get a few books in the end.

I spent some time in the US to attend the wedding of friends Philipp and Anna in CT, met a bunch of Apocalypsies as well as hung out with my DC book blogger buddies. Went to a Fleet Foxes concert in Tulsa, OK.

Somehow I missed the button incident. Good Lord these cats. We dropped over a grand on one of our cats when he broke his leg. Isn't that special, but what are ya gonna do? I just have to say how proud I am of you. You are living the dream.

You had such an amazing year, Lenore! Well, except for the button, but in light of everything else that happened, I think you can overlook that! I hope that this year brings another long list of accomplishments and happiness for you and Daniel!